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Etymology data from Wiktionary via Wiktextract (CC BY-SA 4.0). Chinese character data from the 說文解字, the Taiwan MOE 國語辭典簡編本 (CC BY-ND 3.0 TW) and HSK/TOCFL lists.

Explanations are written by a local model (gemma4) and only published after a verification pass against the cited sources. How it works.

Chinese

寄

jì
to entrust (with a task)
  • Phono-semantic compound 形聲
  • HSK 4
  • TOCFL 3
  • radical 宀
  • 11 strokes

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Origin

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *krals): semantic 宀 (“house”) + phonetic 奇 (OC *kral, *ɡral) ― living away from home.

;"to commit to one's charge" (Lunyu), "to entrust, communicate" (Liji), > "send (a letter)"

;"translator, interpreter" > "an alternate name used for the Dongyi tribes during the Ming Dynasty"

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • meaningChinese宀 “a type of deep house with walls on all four sides, a roof, a main hall, and back rooms”
  • soundChinese奇 “strange; odd; weird; unusual”
    • meaningChinese大 “of great size; big; large; huge”
    • soundChinese可 “can; may; be able to”
      • meaningChinese口 “mouth, especially the lips and internal mouth cavity (Classifier: 把 c)”
      • soundChinese丂 “the appearance of air which is to be released”
        • componentChinese𠃑
        • componentChinese一 “one”

Meanings

character
  1. to entrust (with a task)
  2. to depend on; to adhere to
  3. to live away from home
  4. to place (temporarily); to put; to deposit
  5. to express or convey (one's feelings) through a medium, such as the thing one describes, composes or paints
  6. to transmit (an item) on behalf of another person; to send (now chiefly through mail); to post

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

寄：託也。从宀奇聲。

Xu Shen, c. 100 CE — the first analytical dictionary of Chinese characters.

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 託付。 例：寄託
  2. 傳達言語、心意，或透過郵遞傳送書信、包裹。 例：寄信、寄包裹、寄語白雲
  3. 暫時依附。 例：寄居、寄宿、寄食
  4. 臨時委託。 例：寄存、寄賣

© Ministry of Education, Taiwan — CC BY-ND 3.0 TW, shown unaltered.

How 寄 was written 字形演變

  1. 寄 in Qin slips script
    Qin slips
    秦系簡牘
    Qin
  2. 寄 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  3. 寄 in Regular script
    Regular
    楷書
    since c. 200 CE

Historical forms collected by the legacy etymfun dataset; most characters have several attested variants.

Sources

  • Historical glyph forms (zdic.net 字形演变) — Rights unverified
  • HSK / TOCFL word lists — Facts (levels)
  • 教育部《國語辭典簡編本》 (Taiwan MOE) — CC BY-ND 3.0 TW
  • 說文解字 Shuowen Jiezi (Xu Shen, c. 100 CE) — Public domain
  • Wiktionary (via Wiktextract / kaikki.org) — CC BY-SA 4.0
  • Wiktionary: 寄